A woman from Florida has claimed she was forced to marry her rapist at age 11.
Sherry Johnson says she was raped four times by members of her family’s church congregation as a child. As a result, she became pregnant at age 10.
When investigators began looking into her case, she claims her family tried to protect her rapist by forcing her to marry him.
“My mom asked me if I wanted to get married, and I said, ‘I don’t know, what is marriage, how do I act like a wife?’” Ms Johnson told The New York Times. “She said, ‘Well, I guess you’re just going to get married.’”
Florida is one of 27 US states that permits children of any age to be married with their parents’ permission.
Ms Johnson says her marriage kept her from attending school regularly. Instead, she took care of their children – she gave birth to nine in total – and fought with her husband over finances.
“It was a terrible life,” Ms Johnson said.
The marriage eventually dissolved, as most underage marriages do.
Ms Johnson later wrote a book about her story, called “Forgiving the Unforgivable”. The story inspired Florida state Representative Cynthia Stafford to sponsor a bill outlawing child marriage in Florida.
“Marriage is an adult responsibility,” Ms Stafford said. “We don’t want them to vote, we don’t want them to drink alcohol, they can’t drive a car, and we allow them to marry under 16?”
Both Ms Stafford’s legislation and a matching Senate bill died in committee. A similar law was shot down by the New Hampshire state legislature this year.
Just this month, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie vetoed a law that would have outlawed child marriage without exception.
“An exclusion without exceptions would violate the cultures and traditions of some communities in New Jersey based on religious traditions,” Mr Christie said in a statement.
A 2011 study found that some 9.4m US women were married before age 16. The study also found that such women were more likely to have psychiatric disorders, and to seek out health services.
“You can’t get a job, you can’t get a car, you can’t get a license, you can’t sign a lease,” Ms Johnson told The New York Times, “so why allow someone to marry when they’re still so young?”
I’m just going to throw out the data for everyone. If your home state is one of the 27, supporting failed legislation in New Hampshire and New Jersey, or joining efforts in Texas where girls have the highest rate of child marriage, would be a worthwhile endeavour for a local radfem group to hook up with female-focused npos and people with access to legal resources we don’t.
The United States-based anti-child marriage nonprofit, Unchained at Last, estimates just under 250,000 affected children between 2000 and 2010. 13 States are not obligated to report. 9.4 million comes from the Tahirih Justice Center.
A study published in 2011 drew on data from a national survey sample of nearly 25,000 U.S. women to conclude that the prevalence of child marriage among women in the United States is 8.9%. Projecting nationally, researchers estimated that over 9.4 million U.S. women had married at age 16 or younger, and that nearly 1.7 million had married at age 15 or younger). (x)
From 2001 to 2010, nearly 4,000 teenagers under 18 married in New York
From 2004-2013, 4500 teenagers under 18 married in Virginia, “nearly 90% of them were girls, nearly 90% married adults, and sometimes those adults were decades older. (x)”
From 2004-2014, 3100 teenagers under 18 were married in Maryland.
Most U.S. states set 18 as the ostensible statutory minimum age to marry. However, this requirement can often be easily set aside through lax waiver provisions, which does little to protect against forced marriages of children. In some states, a court clerk can approve all underage marriage license applications. Notably, even in states that require judges to be involved and to consider the best interests of the child, marriages of young children have been judicially-approved. (x)
The 27 states lacking statutory minimum: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Everywhere else is 14-16, except for NH where the boys’ age is 14 but the girls’ 13.
Thoughtfulfangirling 